In this hold, you don't play the Stalwart everybody knows and loves... instead, you play a weak peasant who is quite literally, defenseless.

The good news is that even in the first level, there are treasures to help fix that problem. The bad news is that you have to fight monsters while having extremely low stats before getting those bonuses.

All levels have been uploaded. As usual, please continue to leave feedback for improving the levels before this gets submitted to the HA process.

Very fun! I beat this first attempt, but when I went back to try different strategies, most of them fell flat. There really aren't that many ways to beat the hold -- at least the correct path is pretty straightforward. (Is that what makes a hold easy? Who knows!)

If you make this hold more than two or three levels long, you'll run into a problem: keeping players on the treadmill. Since the player starts off so weak, and a single powerup can mean the difference between victory and defeat, it's really super easy for them to fall behind and have to restart. Sure, this applies to every hold, but it will apply to this hold even more since the margins are so small. I don't have a solution -- just pointing it out.

I beat this with exactly 12 more health than Nuntar (no other differences, though). I'm not too sure about the cross image you uploaded. I'm worried that it might be a little too white - a brown might be better. Other than that, it's good.

The third level has now been uploaded as well... there is a plethora of powerful health and attack bonuses, because the player will need them in order to finish the level and the last few levels after it.

That image you are looking at was because I made a failed attempt at assigning new variables "ZombieHP" "ZombieGuardHP" and "DungeonMasterHP" to the three monsters affected by the cross, and using the cross to divide those variables by 2 globally.

If you check the scripts for the three monsters mentioned, you will notice I opted instead for them to wait until the player has the cross and then manually adjust their HP to what would mathematically be half.

Nevertheless, the old script you found should have been gone and I will remove it when I upload the next version.

I suppose that from the lack of comments, it means there isn't any obvious flaws with the fourth level from the version currently attached. Now I will uploaded the last level and final boss fight(s) for the last stage of testing.

Similar to the cross in the dungeon, the Chaos Fist will reduce the two golem bosses' health in the fifth level. Try fighting them without it and notice how much more expected damage is predicted. Also, the exploit of the Grappling Hook is intended as without all the bonuses, the "gauntlet of bosses" that finish the hold would be unsolvable.

I will add a scroll in the dungeon announcing what the cross does and a scroll in the Chaos Dimension announcing what the Chaos Fist does to help players make their decisions.

Yes, I did intend for the defense gem to close the green key and vice versa. Fixed now.

Regarding the second one (not taking any damage except from bosses), how did you manage that? I don't believe I provided enough defense gems prior to the start of the fifth level to get at least 81 DEF (the ATK of Alchemists without their beam), even with the wooden shield.

I wouldn't necessarily say it is definitely intended, but I'm not the greatest RPG player and I managed to take serious blows from the monsters, so I don't intend on changing it because it would be too difficult or even impossible for those who don't manage your level of DEF.

No, it's that I have 70 ATK when entering the Chaos Dimension. I pick up the wooden sword, and I one-shot everything except the boss and the golden wubba. Of course, the mercenary hits me with his sword if I want that green key.

Okay, I'm fine with leaving the monsters as they are because of the bosses later on (the last three: 1st Offender, 1st Uniter and the King.) Were you able to beat the bosses and walk away with a ridiculous amount of health, or do you think they were the right difficulty to encourage the proper decisions?

I just noticed that the script that gives you the Blue Key in Axial Fortress doesn't work as intended (gives you the key before you kill all of the guards/executioneers) and that you can beat the King without the aid of the small potion given to you. The next update fixes both.

Regarding a post I wrote earlier (that I fixed the scroll error) I thought I did, but it turns out that after exporting the hold, the three lines of script I delete from the global script come back once I export the hold. Is this an intended feature? If not, I will start a topic on RPG Bugs about it.